


Convenient Arrangements

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - College/University, College professors, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, bisexual awakening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28517184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Dmitri Vologin is about to lose his tenure track job in the US and needs to find a way to get a new green card as soon as possible so that he doesn’t get sent back to Russia, where there is a very real chance he’ll be jailed for homosexual tendencies... or at least blacklisted by the only profession he is trained for.When he can’t find a job, his fellow professor Rosemary—with whom he has a decade-long friendship and productive working partnership, even if he’s not attracted to her—offers him a marriage of convenience for as long as he needs to find a new tenured position, an offer Dmitri accepts out of desperation. But living with Rosemary is a good deal more intimate than just being her professional colleague, and as they grow closer, he begins to wonder if his only feelings for her are friendship... or if there’s something more.
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character





	Convenient Arrangements

Dmitri Vologin was in trouble.

He had spent the past two years teaching at a university in the United States, on a contract that had been meant to transition him to a position with tenure. Unfortunately, the department had lost a major chunk of their funding this year and had needed to cut the tenure position he had been in line for.

He had been looking around for some other position, _any_ other position, for weeks now, but he had started too late in the year, and pickings were slim. And without a job that provided a green card, he would be sent back to Russia for good, where…

Well, never mind what would happen if he went back to Russia to stay. Because if he thought too much about it, he would panic, and panicking would not make any of this easier.

That did not stop him from going through his days in a haze of anxiety. He tried to keep it quiet, tried to keep the moments when he lost control of his emotions to times when he was out of the public eye, and had thought he had been succeeding. Or at least he thought he had been until Dr. Epps—Rosemary, she always asked him to call her, but he had still been an extremely nervous and overly correct graduate student the first time he had met her and he had never quite managed to get used to the fact that they were now peers—pulled him aside one afternoon after his final class for the week.

“Tea. In my office.”

Dmitri shook his head. It had been a long week, and he had made no further progress with his job hunt, and he still had research papers to grade, and… “I would rather not—”

“It wasn’t a question, Dmitri,” she said, taking him by the elbow. He did not have it in him to resist her as she lead him down the hall to where her office was, the well-established abode of a tenured professor who had been there for a decade and who was not planning to leave any time soon. Dmitri looked around it with envy as she settled him in one of the spare chairs she kept in there for visitors and meetings.

Rosemary patted him firmly on the shoulder, as if commanding him to stay, and bustled around her desk to turn on the electric kettle which was technically contraband but which no one dared to protest. “Long week?” she asked.

Dmitri made a noncommittal noise.

“I just heard. I didn’t think…” she blew out a frustrated puff of air. “I hoped that we would be able to keep at least one of the new positions. I had a letter all ready. I wanted to make sure it would be you.”

“Thank you,” Dmitri said, quietly. “I appreciate the thought.”

They were silent until the kettle boiled, Dmitri hunched over in his chair, Rosemary leaning against the side of her desk and watching him with a look of concern furrowing her brow. She poured hot water into a mug, added a bag of black tea, and, with another frowning look at Dmitri, several spoonfuls of honey as well before she handed it over.

He cupped his hands around it, soothing himself on the warmth.

“I have some job postings,” she said. “I’ve written letters of recommendation, too.”

Dmitri nodded numbly and she went down the list. He had applied and been rejected by most of them immediately, in the first cut, and was expecting rejections from the rest in short order given his luck so far. Not that the remaining schools on the list had been places he particularly wanted to work, of course, simply that they had been better than returning to Russia.

“Bastards,” Rosemary said viciously about the final school on her list when Dmitri confessed that they had also rejected him. “You’re the best option out there for what they’re advertising. They’d be lucky to get you at the salary they’re offering.”

He let out a strained laugh and took a sip from the mug. The honey cut the bitter tannins of the cheap black tea and soothed his throat, which had grown thick and scratchy with suppressed tears as she had gone down the list. “I am Russian. And even you must admit that it is not politic to be Russian in America, at current time.”

Rosemary sighed and slumped forward, dropping her chin into her hand. “I suppose not.”

“I will find some way. Perhaps the private sector…?”

Rosemary frowned. “You love teaching, Dmitri. And I’m not sure you’ll come back to it if you go commercial.”

“I cannot go back to Russia.” The words came out of him in a rush. “I am too well known in academic circles. Too well known as… as a person.” He flushed at even getting that near to the reason he could not go back.“If I return to Russia, I will end up in prison, or without a job and on the streets and I…” he trailed off, not wanting to expose his darkest fears out loud and fully expecting Rosemary to laugh and say it could not possibly be that bad.

She did not. She still had a little frown on her face, creasing two small lines between her eyebrows as she studied him. “I see,” she said finally. “Well, then. I know this is a bit out of the left field, but how would you like to get married to me?”

Dmitri gaped across Rosemary’s desk at her. “Married?”

“I suppose it might look better if I were a little closer to your age, but I figure we’ve got, what, almost a decade of correspondence from before you came here to back up any claim that we might make about it being a long-standing attachment, which should make things a little easier on the immigration end of things.” Her voice was surprisingly calm as she suggested this, sending Dmitri’s mind even further into a whirl of confusion.

“You… you do understand why it is I cannot go back to Russia?” he managed to get out, stumbling over the words. Perhaps homosexuality was not often punished by a prison sentence these days, but it was still illegal, and academics had more eyes on them than some. Worse, though, was the fact that Dmitri had exposed his same-sex tendencies to the wrong man, smitten and not nearly as cautious as he should have been.

Rosemary smiled kindly at him. “Oh, darling, I’m well aware of your proclivities. We would definitely live separate lives, or as much as we could. But I figure we like each other well enough to make a go of pretending it’s a real marriage to everyone who cares about that sort of thing, and that’s the important bit.”

“So you are proposing, what, a marriage of convenience?” Dmitri stared at her. Surely she could not be as nonchalant about this as she seemed to be.

Rosemary shrugged. “I’m over the age of forty. If I were going to have a real go of it with someone, I expect I would have by now.”

“I... do you truly think it would work?” Dmitri was frowning now, giving the idea proper consideration.

“I think it might.” Rosemary shrugged again. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I’ve known plenty of people who got married for real who weren’t even that. We’d probably have to join households to make it plausible to the outside world, but I do mean it when I say we’d live separate lives. You would be free to take your time with the job search, and with… well. Whatever else you need.” She was blushing now, perhaps for the same reason he had earlier.

“I cannot promise that I would not end up halfway across the country from here,” Dmitri said quietly.

“All the better. After all, that’s not an unusual circumstance to end up in for couples where both partners are academics, and it would be easy enough to break things off due to irreconcilable differences after a few years, once you’re safe in a position with tenure.” Rosemary got to her feet and came around her desk, settling into the chair at his side and placing a firm, comforting hand on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think I could rub along tolerably well with you, you know.”

“Why _are_ you offering?” Dmitri asked, unable to find more words for his confusion.

Rosemary smiled kindly at him. “Because you’re my friend. And, from the sound of how things are going with the job search, because this might be the only way I _can_ help you.”

Dmitri frowned down at his mug of tea. It was not an option he could have ever foreseen himself taking… but it was one he was considering nonetheless. “I will think about it.”

There was a firm pat from the hand she had left on his shoulder, and then Rosemary was back to her feet and bustling around her desk. “Do. There’s no time limit on it. And in the meantime I’ll give those positions you’ve still got applications out with a call or two and see what I can do.”

Rosemary had a stubborn expression on her face when he lifted his head to look at her, and it left him feeling a remarkable surge of affection for the woman. She had been a much-needed mentor to him since he had met her. He was at this job because she had been his advocate, and before he had joined the faculty here, they had worked on research together at a distance, exchanging reams of letters on a weekly basis. She was like an older sister to him, a careful, guiding influence who had helped him become everything he now was.

But if he married her, even if they intended to live separate lives—or at least as much as they could do so when living in the same residence—it would change everything.

He might be all right with that, if it meant he would not be forced to go back to Russia.

“Rosemary?”

“Hm?” She glanced up distractedly over the top of her reading glasses from the letter she had started in on while he had been sitting there, nursing his tea and studying her and considering.

“I do not truly want any of those remaining positions I have applied for.”

She frowned and removed the reading glasses, letting them drop to her chest on their chain. “All right. Can’t say I blame you, especially about the one in Florida.”

“You really were serious?”

She nodded. “Wouldn’t have offered if I weren’t.”

“Then yes.”

A sudden, brilliant flash of a grin made its way across Rosemary’s face, leaving Dmitri unexpectedly breathless. She lifted the reading glasses back to her nose and pulled out a fresh piece of paper. “Right! Then let’s plan a wedding.”

Dmitri couldn’t help but laugh, all of his anxiety, at least for the moment, completely gone.


End file.
